


The Hollow Jubilee

by LateStarter58



Series: Bardology [2]
Category: British Actor RPF, Tom Hiddleston - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Black Comedy, Gen, Satire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 05:25:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17781392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LateStarter58/pseuds/LateStarter58
Summary: It's 2012, but on the eve of the grand celebrations, something unforeseen has happened.





	The Hollow Jubilee

**Author's Note:**

> This story has to come with a major health warning. Please note IT IS A JOKE. If you are offended by humour aimed against the British Royal family, or about people dying, then don’t read it. I am not, but then I am a life-long republican and a campaigner against the established order in the UK who has a very dark sense of humour.   
> It has been suggested in the Hiddleston fandom, more than once, how ‘nice’ it would be if that pesky towel in a certain scene in Henry IV Pt2 had just fallen off… Once this idea crossed my mind, it kept tickling me until I wrote it. It is meant to be humorous, in a black, satirical way, but I have no wish to offend. (BTW, the narrator is the same OFC (in an AU) as in Where There’s a Will.)

He made a sorry sight, the grey-haired man slumped on the chair in the bare room - _cell_ , I suppose we should call it.  The bright TV lighting made him appear even paler: his face and hair were the same shade. My heart went out to him.

_Poor chap. He didn’t do it on purpose. He had no idea all this would happen…_

A week ago the plain but gracious room he was in had simply been part of an apartment used by the third in command at the most imposing of Britain’s fortresses. But that was then, in another time, _in another world_. The Tower had a long and bloody history, and once again, as of this week, it was doing duty as one of the nation’s oldest _and_ newest prisons. And there was the accused, being interviewed on the _Six O’Clock News._

Fiona Bruce coughed again, a little louder.

‘What can I say?’ His voice sounded frail to me: reduced.

‘Sir Richard, I think people want to hear you say you are sorry. For what you did. For the consequences.’

He looked steadily at his coolly beautiful interlocutor. I sighed: _why do journalists always want the same pat answers? ‘Say sorry. Say you’ll resign. Condemn the act.’ For fuck’s sake, of course he’s sorry, you stupid woman_! He didn’t think when he planned filming THAT SCENE ‘Oh this will cause death and destruction…’

Earlier that day I had been down to the Tower of London myself and walked past the creepily quiet crowds of white-faced tourists and angry ‘well-wishers’, some of whom were brandishing effigies. Were they planning to burn them? It seemed rather medieval to me, an educated, liberal, feminist of the 21stCentury, but at the same time oddly fitting. A few of the hundreds, perhaps thousands of people gathered there stared at me as I walked by on my way to the gate.

It wasn’t open to visitors of course, but I wanted to send Sir Richard Eyre a message of support. Everyone else seemed to be calling for his head, caught up in the madness gripping the nation, and I wanted to show him that not all of us blamed him for the unforeseeable result of a perfectly understandable artistic decision. I had handed an envelope to the armed guard at the entrance and he promised me it would reach its intended recipient.

I caught the bus back into the West End. I wanted to do some shopping but I had heard some of the big stores were closed ‘as a mark of respect’. A bit over the top, I thought, but then people had been overreacting to this from day one. That seems to be the way of the world these days. Looking out of the window I could see workmen with ladders and cherry pickers taking down the lights and banners that had been put up only a week or so earlier. They were singularly inappropriate now. The atmosphere everywhere in the city was tense, nothing like a normal day in London.

‘I reckon they should string ‘im up. They can still do it for treason, yer know-‘ The man sitting next to me was jabbing at his copy of _The Daily Mail._

‘No they can’t.’

‘Sorry, wha’?’ He stared at me.

‘It’s a common misconception, but actually, they quietly abolished the death penalty for treason decades ago.’

I knew this because my head is full of this kind of useless information. Well, useless unless you are on a TV quiz or something…

‘Well ‘e should be strung up, anyway,’ said the man defiantly, ‘I mean, it was bloody disgusting, irresponsible.’ There was a murmur of agreement from around the bus. I kept quiet. Not agreeing seemed a tad risky, the way the mood of the country was right then.

This draconian approach seemed to be the prevailing view, hence the incarceration of a Knight of the Realm in an 11thcentury castle and the crowds outside brandishing metaphorical pitchforks. It was ridiculous: sad, mad; I kept pinching myself. I mean, I _adore_ Tom Hiddleston, _ALL OF HIM_ , but even I wouldn’t have thought the sight of his naked bodyon screen would actually really _kill_ anyone, least of all, well…

******

**_Four Days Earlier_ **

‘Well, that was _amazing._ ’ I pointed the remote and switched the TV off, my head still full of Ben Wishaw’s ‘skippy king’.

My husband stretched and yawned. Yes, I knew he’d been asleep. The snoring was a bit of a give-away.

‘You liked it? Good. When’s the next part on?’

I rolled my eyes. ‘The next _play_ in the series is on tomorrow. Can’t wait!’ I restrained myself from bouncing on the settee.

‘That bloke you like is in that one, right?’

I blushed. He’d realised. _Shit._ I tried to look casual, unsuccessfully.

‘Yes… he’s in all the remaining three, actually.’

Little did I know as we locked up and made our way to bed that things were about to take a bit of a dramatic turn, and not one Shakespeare could have anticipated.

The next morning the radio alarm came on but instead of the usual farming news at that hour there was solemn music. I sat up, checked the tuning hadn’t changed and then lay back, wondering what might have happened. There was only one thing that could cause that sort of reaction on Radio 4 these days, surely. A few minutes later my suspicions were confirmed.

‘It is with the greatest sorrow that we have to announce the death of her majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second. Her majesty passed away suddenly last night at Buckingham Palace.’

Now, while I have nothing against her personally, I am not a royalist. Dave feels the same way. We don’t believe in the whole institution, or all the shit that goes along with it: all the privilege and unearned power and wealth, not to mention the inequality. I usually referred to the Queen as Brenda, as they do in _Private Eye,_ the satirical magazine. So while I felt a little sad about the news, especially as it had happened on the eve of the big Diamond Jubilee knees-up, not to mention the up-coming Olympics, I wasn’t devastated or grief-stricken. I was, however, dreading all the mawkish crap we were no doubt going to be subjected to in the coming weeks. But pretty soon – within hours, in fact – rumours began to appear online.

Apparently, the BBC had put on a private gala, a small fund rising event for the Royals and some very high level government types, featuring a private showing of Henry IV Part 2, the third part of _The Hollow Crown._ The rumours said she had seen something that had caused her to collapse and, well, _die_. I leaned back in my chair, racking my brain to think of something in _Henry IV, Pt 2_ that was in the slightest bit heart attack inducing.  Sad, heart _breaking_ even, but not heart stopping. Nothing came to mind. I reached for my trusty _Complete Works,_ skimmed the text – still nothing. I was still puzzling over it at dinner when Dave gasped and put his hand to his mouth. He had been looking at his phone, and as I watched I saw his shoulders begin to shake almost imperceptibly at first, then, as tears began to fall down his cheeks, I realised he was laughing silently.

‘ _What_?’

It took a few minutes for him to gain enough composure even to pass me his phone. He was still rolling in his chair and shaking his head. I looked at the screen.

_‘QUEEN KILLED BY SIGHT OF ACTOR’S JUNK’_

_What?_ Then I gasped in my turn. _There was a nude scene? ?? I mean, Will would have absolutely have approved the nude scene, but…OMFG. HIDDLES had killed Brenda?_

Over the next few hours, it started to look as if what that American site had said was more or less accurate. I never pictured her as a Hiddleston fan girl… I had heard that he is very, VERY well liked by more _mature_ women but Brenda? Who knew? Then another thing dawned on me: that they would NEVER show the rest of the plays on the BBC now. Or anywhere, probably. Not after this.

Now I _was_ devastated. I had been looking forward to seeing these four films ever since they were announced, even before I realised my favourite actor was playing a leading role in three of them. To me, a total Shakespeare nut, the idea of such a feast was heaven. With a Hiddles nude scene? An absolute must, even if I had to sell a kidney to buy a copy. And now the stupid woman had ruined it for me.

_Someone will leak them out._

The thought crossed my mind as I dropped off to sleep that night. It was comforting.

The next day I discovered I was right, at least partially. Somebody had got hold of the ‘offending’ footage. I had no qualms about clicking on _that_ link, believe me. The quality wasn’t perfect and there was no sound, but I could see they had set a scene in some steam baths, because there was Tom Hiddleston, all sweaty, in just a towel. So far, so vanilla. Deliciously lickable, but harmless enough.  I watched the scene carefully.

Bardolph and Falstaff’s page arrive, hand him a letter. He reads it, it upsets him a bit, and his mate, Poins. He gives the others some money and sends them on their way. Then… well, I could see how it might cause _something…_ There is a tightish shot - he stands up, walks away from camera and… _the towel has been left on the bench_. You see his arse – his beautiful, tight, shapely runner’s arse – but then, as he speaks to Poins, he turns just a little and you get a glimpse. Well, _an eyeful_ , really…

I was transfixed. I may have rewound those few seconds a few (ahem) times. We’d had glimpses before, in both the Joanna Hogg movies he was in, but _this was a tad more than that. In_ _every possible way._

And I could see why such a sight might have ended the life of an eighty-six year-old lady, even one in apparently robust health.

All of this seems surreal, doesn’t it? But things got seriously mad later the same day when we heard that the director of the film, Sir Richard Eyre had been charged with treason. I mean, in 2012? For fuck’s sake! What did the indictment say? _‘Using a perfect body as an offensive weapon? Using a beautiful weapon as a… weapon? Filming Shakespeare with intent to cause actual bodily harm?’_

The entire thing was ludicrous. The angry mob remained outside the Tower. The tabloids kept the pressure on, whipping up the hate. Poor Tom Hiddleston went into hiding, and who can blame him? I felt moved to let Sir Richard know that there were a few people who hadn’t taken leave of their senses, hence my letter.

After the initial shock had worn off, a more reasoned debate started. As the days went on, there was a backlash against the charges. It was unreasonable to think he meant harm. How could anyone anticipate such an outcome? The Queen had been warned there was male nudity in the film, so she wasn’t ambushed. Later we found out that they summoned specialists who testified that she had severe myopia hence if it hadn’t been for the size of Tom’s… _assets_ , the scene would have been fine. It was not Sir Richard’s fault, but the casting director’s, if anybody’s…  Several angry exchanges in Parliament showed that the issue was cutting across party lines, and the tide seemed to be turning, but the PM refused to budge. As is the pattern in modern Britain, ‘someone had to pay’. The papers still bayed for blood.

Finally, a clear and calm voice put an end to all the stupidity and Sir Richard was released, all charges against him dropped. It came from an unexpected quarter. Unexpected that is, unless you thought about it for a moment.

_‘King Charles persuades DPP to drop charges against Eyre.’_

_‘New monarch uses back channels to secure release of director of fatal film.’_

_‘Charlie frees his mum’s killer.’_

 

**_Some time later…_ **

_‘2018 New Years’ Honours said to include Knighthood for Tom Hiddleston among others’_

_‘Charlie to knight actor whose dick killed Liz’_

_‘The investiture ceremony will be presided over by the King. It is understood that several female members of the Royal Family will be present, including the Duchess of Cornwall, the Princess of Wales, the Princess Royal and the Princesses of York.’_

_‘NOW IT’S SIR HIDDLES THE QUEEN-SLAYER!’_


End file.
